Category: Philosophy

A leftist project in the United States needs to both be technically sound and politically persuasive. As Bhaskar Sunkara has often pointed out, the left right now is much too obsessed with the technical “wonky” side of the project. As a result, the moral and political arguments get neglected, and conservative moral and political narratives… Continue reading Problems with a left moral and political narrative

At one point in Theory and Practice, Kant sets out to establish who should have voting rights. In one very fascinating paragraph, he concludes thusly: Anyone who has the right to vote on this legislation is a citizen (citoyen, i.e. citizen of a state, not bourgeois or citizen of a town). The only qualification required… Continue reading Kant’s great dodge

Analysts tend to write about policy and political institutions in very consequentialist ways. That is, they describe the immediate consequences of some institution or policy, and then use those expected consequences to argue that the institution or policy is good or bad. Discussions around fiscal deficits and the federal debt almost uniformly utilize such a… Continue reading Virtue ethics and sovereign debt

In my last post, I discussed the desert theory justification for socializing finance. According to desert theory, individuals should receive compensation equal to their economic contribution. The finance industry violates this principle in a variety of ways. Most notably, it allows owners to capture compensation greater than their economic contribution at the expense of workers… Continue reading Leftist desert theory

I was somewhat taken aback by the negative reactions to Seth Ackerman’s recent piece about socializing finance in the Jacobin. I reviewed his idea positively, but folks on twitter had a different take. The detractors asked, among other things, what problem does this solve? Socializing financial gains does not change working conditions or compensation and… Continue reading Why socialize finance?